


The Sun Hasn't Died

by Snow



Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Cinderella is her own Fairy Godmother, Falling In Love, Gen, Steampunk, Tinkering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steampunk Cinderella</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Hasn't Died

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbirds/gifts).



It's about doing, not wanting, Cinder tells herself, but that doesn't keep her fingers from being numb from the cold as she goes outside to sweep the front drive clear of the last couple fallen leaves, doesn't mean that she can keep her eyes from snapping closed the instant her head rests on her arm, body sprawled across the flat stone in front of the fireplace.

She'll get up early tomorrow, she promises herself, and she does, stars still bright in the sky when she hauls herself through a cold bath that does little to wash the dirt off her hands and cheeks. Unfortunately it's not early enough to have any time to herself, since there is still breakfast to cook and laundry to wash and the floor to scrub. It's only because she's decided that it's worth the risk of punishment to steal food as she's cooking that she manages to have any before two in the afternoon, but the kitchen is spotless again when one of her stepsisters comes tromping down the stairs. 

"Stacia and I are going out," she says, and Cinder jumps up, ready to help them get ready. "She's been invited to a young lord's house, so you'll have to make sure that I look my best." Ardella winks and runs her hand along the counter. "I'll make sure you have tomorrow off if you convince her to wear that horrid yellow dress mother bought her last week."

It's a tempting proposition, even though Cinder's fully aware of the fact that Ardella doesn't really have the power to give Cinder any time off, or she's never exercised it before. It's a tempting proposition, and Cinder tries not to show how much she wants it. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself," she says with a half-laugh, and Ardella's eyes narrow.

"Then you'll do it because otherwise I'll see that the window down here can't be shut anymore."

Cinder opens her mouth and snaps it shut, trying to swallow the angrier of her words. The fact that it's actually warm enough to be able to breathe without pain is about the only thing good about her 'bed'. "I don't know why you think I would have any influence with her," Cinder says, after a pause that's long enough to let Ardella know that the threat is understood, even if she's not really sure what she can do about it.

"She's not very bright," Ardella says, and sweeps off to get ready herself.

* * *

The yellow brings out the sallowness of Stacia's skin and makes her hair look stringy, but Cinder finds some gold beads to help with the latter, and the smile that lights up Stacia's face does something about the former, for the brief moment it lasts. "I'm going to be stuck here forever," Stacia wails. "No one's every going to want to marry me."

Cinder doesn't dare agree or disagree, she just reaches out and straightens the collar and holds out a coat of purple so dark it's almost black that will make Stacia look presentable indeed, for as long as she keeps it on. 

"I don't suppose I should expect you to understand, Elisa," Stacia says when she realizes she isn't getting an answer, and Cinder tries, she really does, to hold her tongue.

"I can think of places I would rather be than here," Cinder admits, trying to keep her voice down so Stacia doesn't register it as a threat to the pampered life she's been living. 

The other woman just laughs. "Don't be stupid, no one else would treat you half so well as we do. You're not pretty to look at, and you don't even have the sort of talents that could get you work as a tradeswoman."

Cinder manages to excuse herself to help Ardella, or at least remind her that Cinder's kept her end of the bargain and that if she gets a day off again, she might consider using the sugar she has to make Ardella's favorite cake, instead of the fruit pie she'd been ordered by their mother to do.

* * *

With them gone and the house mostly to herself, their mother occupied at court or in the market, like usual, Cinder only has to consider for a moment the fact that her list of things to do is long enough that she's not going to have enough done in any situation before she decides that there's not too much point to working fruitlessly there. She'll have dinner done for anyone around to eat it, but the rest can wait. She'll get yelled at either way, and she'd rather have deserved it, or at least gotten something out of it.

The basement workshop had been her father's and the best part isn't the fact that she's left alone while she's down here -- which she is, even if she catches enough hell when she goes back up that it isn't worth simply hiding out -- it's the fantastical creatures that slide on their tracks when she releases the set screws keeping them still and the clockwork butterflies that she can wind up and watch float to the ground, little wings flickering like a hypnotist's pendulum as they fall.

Cinder ignores them both today, focusing instead on her current project. She's about ready to tear her hair out over it, but she doesn't want to contaminate the tiny metal gears because she knows she doesn't have the time or patience to replace them. The conference is in a week, and she's only just managed to get a hold of all the metal that she needs.

The last pot that she'd broken the handle on has had the edges cut off, marked with where she's going to put the holes and do more trimming to get it to size. Her hands are yellow-brown with rust by the time she's finished, and she's entirely lost track of time, but with the baseplate the thing will work, and that's worth a thousand whippings for being clumsy.

Knowing that her piece does what she wants it to isn't enough to guarantee that she'll get any interest, because all Cinder has to gauge interest is half-memories of sitting on her father's lap and hearing the stories he would tell her, and she doubts that things had been as glamorous as he'd said, or he wouldn't have had to marry her stepmother, wouldn't have had to take on peddling other people's goods as a way to make money. 

Cinder does her best to pack up the device, tucking the wings in carefully so that they won't snap, the plastic woven with cloth light and stiff enough to work -- and they look amazing if anyone asks her, the cloth the same purple as Stacia's coat and the plastic a semi-transparent white, almost like snowflakes -- tucked up and safe downstairs for all the work that she still has to do, to make it smooth.

* * *

The day of the conference, Cinder's stepmother gives her a list of things to do that's almost fifty items long, and Cinder nods and smiles, and as soon as she knows she'll be left on her own for at least forty-five minutes she hits the basement to pack the only things that matter, and then the road. This is it, she tells herself. She's not coming back to this place.

The conference is more like Ardella's description of a fair than anything else, and it takes Cinder half an hour before she finds anyone who looks like they have a decent idea of what's going on.

"Excuse me," she says.

"The exhibition booths are over there," he says, pointing without looking at her, something that probably favors her more than it hurts.

"I'm looking to enter one of the contests," Cinder says, careful to stay polite because even if that doesn't help with her stepsisters or stepmother, it still seems like a good idea.

"The contests all require advance registration," he says, voice flat.

"I--. Farm equipment. I want to enter the farm equipment one."

He does look up then, but his face is blank even as eyes flicker over her, take in the pants she's hemmed herself and her pockets bulging with everything she could think to take from her father's workshop -- and a tiny bit of bread and cheese from the kitchen -- her hair messily tied up and the smears of rust and grease on her cheek.

"There are a few spots still open there. Name?"

"Elisa Petherwin."

He pulls out a notebook and pen and scribbles for a while before he switches to another page, writes something much shorter, then pulls it out and hands it to her. "Row C-8."

* * *

There's a crowd gathered on the other side of the mock row of corn when Cinder arrives, but she ignores them in favor of setting up. That her piece requires last-minute assembly is an unfortunate downside, but she hasn't been able to find a way around it and at least this is convenient because no one's watching her. She tips some of the water into the tank, and holds her hand to it after she's wound the part up until she can feel the water heating.

"What are you doing over here?" one of the other inventors asks as he walks by, and Cinder startles a little. 

"I was just--" she starts to justify, but it's clear he's not really interested in the explanation.

"That's the prince over there. If you want any chance of funding your invention, you need to be showing it to him."

"I-- Alright," Cinder says, but she doesn't move quite yet, because she's sure that she's not going to make a good impression like this, and she's not even sure how to impress a prince. She just needs a moment, she thinks, then she'll be ready to see him.

"Your loss," the inventor says, and he walks forward.

Cinder takes a deep breath, and she's in the process of giving a look around the area to make sure that there's no one watching her as she straightens her shirt when she spots a glimmer of a man on the roof of one of the more solid structures set up in the area, leaning in like he's trying to get a really good look at the prince. From up there he must have a good angle.

His hand looks weird, and the instant that Cinder realizes he's holding a pistol is the moment that she feels stupider than Stacia or Ardella had ever managed to make her feel. She doesn't give herself any more time to think than that, taking her metal snowflake dragonfly off the table and throwing it his way, controls coming out of her pocket as she tries to use it to block the barrel of his gun.

The aborted shot is loud enough to make Cinder jump, even though she's anticipating it, and she's not sure if the ground actually shakes or if that's just her, as the prince's security swarm in to where the man had been.

* * *

"You saved my life," and there's something about the matter-of-factness, like of course she would want to sacrifice the only thing she's ever made, the only thing that was actually hers, just to save a man she's never heard of, that grates on her.

"If I hadn't, wouldn't that be treason?" she asks, but Cinder does the best she can to keep her voice light, like she's only teasing.

"Are you all right?"

Cinder feels her composure crack a little at his question, at the apparent kindness. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

He laughs. "Yes, but I asked first."

"Then no."

"Can I help?"

Cinder stares at him, truly taking in for the first time his pretty brown eyes and the fact that while his skin is immaculately clean, the light blue of his shirt is smudged with dirt and antiseize near the cuffs. The fabric is expensive, and he looks on the charming end of charismatic, but he's not exactly what Cinder would have pictured a prince as, if she'd gotten past the crown. "Not unless you're willing to invest in an invention that I can't prove works the way I wanted it to."

"I don't know, I think it did the job."

Cinder grabs on to the surge of anger because it serves to replace the hollowness of despair and wondering what she's actually going to do next. "It's not a military piece, it was supposed to irrigate fields and maybe even help with the sowing of seeds."

He nods, and he's either being careful, or he's actually interested. "Tell me how it works," he says, so she does, she explains the way it uses some of the water for steam but keeps some of it cold enough to sprinkle, explains the amount of area she thinks one of them could cover without refuelling or needing to be rewound, and how fast it would work. While they're talking she feels something like hope building in her again.

* * *

She falls a little in love with him when he says he wants to see how it works, that he wants her to build it again and that he can provide the resources for it, will commission her to do it for him.

She falls most of the way in love with him when he joins her in the lab, when he works next to her sixteen hours a day for two weeks, napping in the lab itself half the time, as she tries to remember how to do what she hadn't written down, working in a different place with different tools and materials.

She falls all of the way in love with him when they run their test and it works, and she looks over at his face and sees the same joy she feels reflected back at her.


End file.
